Tuesday, February 9, 2016
الليدي إيزابيل برتون في دمشق
Sunday, February 7, 2016
Richard Burton
Captain Richard Burton (1821-1890) was a British diplomat, an orientalist, and a linguist. He occupied, among others, the position of Great Britain's consul in Damascus from 1869 to 1871. The Ottoman Empire and Great Britain enjoyed cordial relations throughout most of the 19th century. The British assisted the Ottomans during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign from 1798 to 1801 and helped them evict Ibrāhīm Pāšā and the Egyptian army from Syria in 1841. The second half of the 19th century witnessed renewed British-Ottoman collaboration against Russia's incursions. The Turks used to affectionately call the British ambassador in Constantinople "the Great Elchi."
Burton mastered several languages. He wrote and translated several books. He had enough acquaintance with the religion of Islam that many assumed he was a Muslim, which enabled him to enter the holy city of Mecca. His stay in Damascus was a busy and fruitful one despite political upheavals and sectarian tensions—the memory of the 1860 massacre was still fresh. He befriended quite a few Damascene notables and had a close relationship with Emir ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Ǧazāʾirī. He also made several powerful enemies on account of his proverbial honesty and impartiality, or so at least was the opinion of his spouse, Lady Isabel Burton, who loved and respected him tremendously.
Captain Burton was recalled from Damascus by the British Government after a relatively short stay. The reasons—according to Ms. Burton—were threefold:
1. His intervention to protect poor debtors from prominent Jewish usurers who, though Damascene, were British protégés. Lady Burton would not identify them by name. She described them pejoratively as "Shylocks" as she asserted her endless love and respect for Jews in general. Be that as it may, those usurers appealed to leading Jews in Great Britain, namely Sir Moses Montefiore, Sir Francis Goldsmid, and the Rothschilds. It was inevitable that some would suspect the Burtons of harboring anti-Semitic tendencies.
2. Captain Burton's intervention in a dispute between the Jews of Nazareth and its Orthodox Christians. This time he sided with the Jews.
3. The perfidy of Damascus' Ottoman Governor, Muḥammad Rāšid Pāšā (1865-1871), who was to be deposed shortly after the recall of Captain Burton.
Isabel Burton. The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land, Volume 1.
Isabel Burton. The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land, Volume 2.
The Expansion of Damascus 1860-1923: the Northern Quarters
Unlike the Muhāǧirīn Quarter, which was divided into spacious and regular lots through central planning, the expansion of the urban tissue outside the wall of the Old City into the al-ʿAmārā al-Barrānīyyā took place in an individualistic, random, and gradual manner. Private investors were to guide this process that spanned several decades and converted numerous gardens into housing units. The dwellings were often centered around a cul-de-sac or dead-end and were relatively small and mostly irregular in shape, following the contour of the garden they replaced. The housing clusters correspond to "irrigation units," that is, gardens formerly grouped around creeks derived from the branches of the River Baradā. Those quarters were almost exclusively residential and therefore boasted no important governmental, economic, or religious institutions. To the east of this neighborhood are located the more important extensions dependent on Aleppo Street, where we find one church and two hospitals. Seen in the attached diagram is Baġdād Boulevard, constructed in 1925 under the French Mandate.
Jean-Luc Arnaud. Damas Urbanisme et Architecture 1860-1925. Sindbad 2006.
Father Thomas of Sardinia
Visit the tomb of the Capuchin Father Thomas and mourn.
An apostolic missionary to Damascus, preaching and displaying his solicitude.
Slaughtered by the Jews, only parts of his remains were found.
Dated February 5th, here lie the remains of his bones.
1840
The above text is a translation of four Arabic verses, an epitaph written on the tombstone of a grave containing the alleged remains of Father Thomas of Sardinia, a Capuchin missionary. The relic is located in the Latin Church of Bāb Šarqī (the Eastern Gate). Damascus was still a fiefdom of Muẖammad ʿAlī—Egypt's formidable governor—in February 1840 when Father Thomas and his servant mysteriously disappeared. In a matter of weeks, rumors spread throughout the city as the Christians of Damascus suspected its Jews of abducting and murdering the victims for the purpose of using their blood to bake their matzo. The matter was brought to the attention of Governor Šarīf Pāšā, Muẖammad ʿAlī's lieutenant, who arrested the city's leading rabbis and subjected them to interrogation. Some ended up confessing to the crime under torture. Rabbi Abu al-ʿĀfīā sought salvation through "converting" to Islam, changing in the process his name to Muẖammad Afandī.
Lest we blame this outrage on the barbarity of the benighted Orientals, the "investigation" was conducted by none other than Ulysse de Ratti-Menton, consul of civilized France.
Last—and least—we have the case of Faṭīr Ṣahyūn (Matzo of Zion), a silly book written and published in 1983 by Muṣṭafā Ṭlās, Syria's former minister of defense, who doubtless believed beyond the shadow of a doubt the evidence extracted from the hapless Jews. Sadly, there exists no shortage of "pundits" who still subscribe to this nonsense.
Church of Saint John the Baptist
The advent of Christianity as the official creed of the Roman Empire eliminated the need for colossal temples attracting pilgrims from all over the country. Under the new faith, numerous churches were built so each village and each quarter could have its own oratory. The Roman temple of Damascus was modified accordingly as its peribolos lost its religious function and acquired a distinctly commercial character. Towards the end of the 4th century AD under the emperor Theodosius, the temple of Jupiter was transformed into the Church of St. John. The tradition of the burial of Saint John the Baptist's head at this location, however, is no older than the late 6th century. The location of the main entrance to the edifice was probably reoriented from the eastern wall of the temenos to its southern wall; the latter entrance was blocked later. A Greek inscription remains above the southern gateway, proving that the Roman temple, or part of it, was indeed converted to a Byzantine church. The writing is an adaptation of Psalm 145.13: "Thy Kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting Kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations."
The first figure represents a reconstruction of the Byzantine Church at the time of the Arab Muslim conquest, prior to its replacement by the ʾUmayyād Mosque.
Ross Burns. Damascus, a History. Routledge 2005.
K A C Creswell. Early Muslim architecture. Oxford 1932.
Temple of Jupiter
As was the case in Baalbek and Jerusalem, the dimensions of the pagan temple of Damascus were imposing. Under the Romans, the sanctuary occupied nearly 117,000 square meters, as opposed to the 16,000 square meters of the modern ʾUmayyād Mosque. Jupiter's temple consisted of three areas marking a gradual transition from the profane to the sacred.
1. Peribolos. Contained between the sanctuary's double enclosure, this outer space was approached from the west by a propylaeum, the remnants of which could still be seen in al-Miskīyyā. The main entrance to the temple, however, was through an eastern propylaeum, as the crowds proceeded from the agora through Via Sacra (modern al-Qaymarīyyā Street) towards Bāb Ǧayrūn. The peribolos served as a meeting place for pilgrims and merchants, serving, in addition to its religious purpose, as a marketplace and fairground.
2. Temenos. The temple proper, where sacrifices took place under the supervision of priests. It was approximately five meters higher than the peribolos. The temenos was rectangular in shape, and its four corners were occupied by towers. Its area corresponds roughly to that of the ʾUmayyād Mosque.
3. Cella. Housing the idol or a representation of the deity. Entrance to this innermost sanctuary was forbidden to laymen, only priests were allowed into this holiest of the holy, where the intimate rituals were performed. The god's image was nevertheless periodically paraded outside in solemn processions before the crowds.
The top figure (Dussaud) is a reconstruction of the eastern facade of the temenos, the temple's main entrance under the Romans.
Ross Burns. Damascus, a History. Routledge 2005.
Wulzinger & Watzinger. Damaskus, die antike Stadt 1921 (p. 3-42).
René Dussaud. Le temple de Jupiter Damascénien et ses transformations aux époques chrétienne et musulmane. Syria 1922 (p. 219-250).
Roman Damascus
The expansion of Damascus proceeded unabated under the Romans until it reached approximately the same area currently occupied by the intramural town—apart from relatively minor adjustments in the Middle Ages under the Arabs that transformed its shape from classical and rectangular to oval. The Roman city possessed seven doors named after heavenly bodies. Al-Bāb aš-Šarqī, or the Eastern Gate, is one of the oldest and best-preserved Roman monuments in Damascus. The Street Called Straight was also constructed under the Romans to become, with its width of 26 meters, the main artery of the city running from east to west parallel to the old Qaymarīyyā axis that connected the agora with the temple in the Hellenistic age. The Nabatean Quarter was located in the eastern part, whereas a military compound occupied the northwest part of the city where the Citadel currently stands. The Roman era is also credited with the construction of the Qanawāt aqueduct that provided the city with running water.
Roman Damascus was endowed with a theater located to the south of Via Recta, modern sūq Madḥat Pāšā, between H̱ān Sulaymān Pāšā and Hišām Mosque. The edifice had a diameter of 93 meters, comparable to Palmyra's theater, which seated about 7,000-9,000 spectators.
Hellenistic Damascus
The most important cities in the Hellenistic era were Antioch in Syria and Alexandria in Egypt. Like Apamea, Jerusalem, and Tyre, Damascus was at the time a second-tier city with a surface area about half that of the Seleucid capital on the Orontes.
Aramean Damascus
Aramean Damascus occupied a small part of the old city as we currently know it. It was located on a ridge south of the River Baradā, where we can distinguish four small mounds rising 2-5 meters above the surrounding neighborhood. Those mounds are thought to be artificial tells, hiding the debris of the Aramean city. The most important of those is Tell as-Sammākā, which corresponds to a location called by the Arab conquerors al-Barīṣ, an Aramean word, though some suggest that it hides the remains of a Roman Odeon. The palace was probably located near Tell al-Qanāṭir, where the al-ʿAẓm Palace currently stands, whereas the temple of Hadad-Ramman was about 300 meters north of the palace at a space currently occupied by the ʾUmayyād Mosque.
Ross Burns. Damascus, a History. Routledge 2005.
Baradā
Ross Burns. Damascus, a History. Routledge 2005.
Origins of Damascus
The inhabitants of Damascus and Aleppo dispute for their respective cities the honor of being the oldest in the world; perhaps Aleppo's claim is closer to reality, but both allegations are probably exaggerated even within the confines of geographical Syria, dominated in the Bronze Age by three towns: Mari, Ugarit, and Ebla. The first mention of Damascus—and it was only in passing—was in the 15th century B.C. during the reign of the Pharaoh Thutmose III as recorded in the Karnak inscriptions. The second was in the 14th century B.C. in the ʿAmārnā correspondence. The land of Damascus was far from ideal for settled agriculture on a wide scale back in the 2nd millennium B.C. For one thing, it was distant from major trade routes; another dilemma consisted in the largely wasted water in marshes surrounding a ridge by the Baradā River, an ideal environment for endemic diseases such as malaria and typhoid.
The emergence of Damascus on the world stage had to await the Aramean age, when two seminal events took place: the first was an agricultural revolution made possible with the distribution of Baradā's water via man-made canals; the second was a commercial one that manifested itself with the domestication of the camel at the turn of the first millennium B.C. The Agricultural Revolution created the Ġūṭā, and the Commercial Revolution transformed Damascus into a hub of transportation along the caravan routes; both enhanced the city's prosperity and diffused its fame far and wide.
Ross Burns. Damascus, a History. Routledge 2005.
The Damascus Affair and the Massacre of 1860
Contrary to the lies and half-truths that make the stuff out of which traditional history textbooks are written, until very recently religious tolerance—let alone harmony—was the exception rather than the rule; that was true in Syria and elsewhere, as illustrated by Muslims's description of minorities in the unedited version of the Arabian Nights.
A case in point is the Damascus Affair of 1840, when the city's Christians accused its Jews of killing a disappeared Capuchin monk with his servant and baking their matzo using their blood. The Christians solicited the aid of the governor of Damascus, who had the suspects interrogated under torture. Some broke down and confessed. One rabbi went to the extent of converting to Islam and testifying to confirm his tormentors' worst suspicions; in other words, he told them whatever he thought they wanted to hear.
Regrettably, and even today, there is no shortage of those who still believe this preposterous tale. The libel acquired the semi-official endorsement of the Syrian government when Defense Minister Muṣṭafā Ṭlās published a comical book in 1983.
Damascus Christians' turn arrived 20 years later when violence reached catastrophic proportions: Bāb Tūmā Quarter was leveled and thousands of innocents massacred.
Image credit: L'Univers illustré 116, August 2nd 1860.
Ǧaddat al-Baḥrā al-Daffāqā
Connecting the Citadel with the Great Mosque
Under the French Mandate, architect Michel Écochard and urbanist René Danger were assigned the task of creating a plan for the future development of Damascus. Elaborated in 1935-1936, the plan may conveniently be summarized as follows:
Part One concerned itself with protecting al-Ġūṭā by orienting the expansion of the residential area away from the lush gardens. Unfortunately, what happened in the next few decades was almost the exact opposite.
Part Two aimed at exposing the city's landmarks through the construction of wide thoroughfares crisscrossing Old Damascus in an adaptation of Baron Haussmann's renovation of Paris in the second half of the 19th Century. The new design would allow long distance travellers to bypass the city through an elaborate net of highways. Works started in earnest in 1936 and the project included creating public gardens and a National Museum west of at-Tekīyyā as-Sulaymānīyyā.
The application of the second part of the plan accelerated in 1983 with the uncovering of the Citadel. This entailed the destruction of Sūq al-H̱uǧā, the western end of Sūq al-Ḥamīdīyyā, and several buildings located at the western entrance of the ʾUmayyad Mosque. The demolition extended to Sūq Sārūǧā and parts of the Mīdān Quarter before the pressure of UNESCO and concerned others convinced the civic authorities to halt their "modernization" and spare what's left.
Photo: Gérard Degeorge August 1984.
Danger (René), Écochard (Michel). Damas: Rapport d'enquēte monographique sur la ville"/réd. P.-S. Khoury. [éd. ?], 1936.
Gérard Degeorge. Damas des Ottomans à nos jours. Éditions L'Harmattan 1994.
Gérard Degeorge. Damas, Répertoire Iconographique. Éditions L'Harmattan 2001.